If you’re looking for some compelling summer reading, here are three great options to consider.

In the Lingering Light, Cynthia Fantasia takes readers into the world of Alzheimer’s from the caregiver perspective. The long journey that began with the shattering diagnosis of her husband of over forty years brought a litany of losses, isolation, and grief. Cynthia bares her heart to share the realities—the good, bad, and ugly—of this shadowy world where there is no cure and where, as caregiver, her faith was fiercely tested, yet was also what kept her going. No one should minimize what it cost her to look back and relive those painful years for the sake of others. Other caregivers will find here a wealth of helpful information and a wise friend with them on the journey. It will be eye-opening for pastors and friends who want to understand and help in ways that matter.

The assumption within Christian circles is that for women and girls silence is golden, deference and submission are supreme virtues, and less is more. The compulsion to hold back—fortified by church and cultural messages for women—means offering less to Jesus. It vastly underestimates and hampers the mission he entrusted to his followers and deprives our brothers of the strengths and wisdom they need from us. We end up living with one foot on the brake. We owe Jesus more! In No More Holding Back, Kat draws from her own struggles with these confining, cautionary messages to summon her sisters in Christ to stop holding back. Her passionate call to shed these hindrances and press on to love God freely with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength is crucial reading for the whole church!

Jenny Rae Armstrong’s bold new book, From Risk to Resilience: How Empowering Young Women can Change Everything, is a bracing exposé of the current global human rights crisis that is destroying and diminishing the lives of millions of girls. This crisis occupies a wide spectrum of expression—from the deadly sinister acts such as child marriages, honor killings, and sexual violence to benign forms involving limiting a girl’s horizons simply because she was born female.
This is urgent reading for pastors and ministry leaders, parents and teachers, and anyone who longs to see God’s daughters flourish!
I’m going to try to get our public library to buy these. And thanks for keeping us up to date about Arden. We’re glad she’s in braces and back home. Will keep praying for her.
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Great idea! Hope others will do the same.
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